This blog used to be about politics. Not so much anymore as I have worked through
my fascination with that subject. It now seems appropriate that with a new president
and the end of the Bush nightmare that I move on to new subjects that are more in
line with my current interests. I may still occasionally express an opinion about
political matters but for the most part I will be commenting on music, photography
and personal observations. Thank you for reading.

"NEW YORK, Aug. 9 -- Hollywood super-agent Michael S. Ovitz spent 14 disastrous months as the No. 2 executive at Walt Disney Co., taking $140 million in severance when he was forced out, or $10 million for each month on the job. On Tuesday, a Delaware judge ruled that the severance package, while 'breathtaking,' was perfectly legal and that directors did not violate their duty to protect shareholders when they approved it."

• $500,000-per-year consulting contract for up to eight years, paid quarterly in advance ($4 million total).• $4,586,515 lump-sum cash for severance payment, health benefits and incentive awards that were to be paid for 1997.• $765,600-per-year pension, starting in 1997.• Vesting of 298,000 stock options and restricted stock. He netted $6.3 million in the 1997 fiscal year after acquiring 89,000 shares, with remaining stock options then valued at $13 million.• $210,000 in legal fees to prepare his retirement agreement.• $25,000 per year fee as "advisory director" on Delta's board.• Flight privileges for life for Allen and his family.• An office and a full-time secretary in Buckhead's 24-floor Monarch Tower for 10 years. First-year cost was $91,099.• $408,766 initial cost to design, construct and furnish the office.• Membership for 10 years in the Commerce Club of Atlanta.• Membership for 10 years in the East Lake Golf Club, as long as Delta maintains a corporate membership.• Company car.• $25,565 for residential security systems.

Excess executive pay is a result of one type of thinking; "We deserve this money because we are better than you."

The other day I made on offhand comment to a coworker, that being rich changes the way you think. After thinking about how I would go about justifying that remark, I realized, I should have said that being rich CAN change the way you think. More specifically, it makes you start believing that you are somehow better than other people. You must be, people listen to you, stores and restaurants go out of their way to cater to your needs and people pay attention to you even if you're saying the most ludicrous things.

Living a life of excess doesn't feel so bad as long as the people around you are doing so as well. Its all relative. But take that two story house with two and a half baths, a library, den and pool house and plop it down into a shanty town full of people living elbow to elbow and it starts to feel selfish and unneccesary. Because it is.

Human beings don't need much to survive. That's obvious when you look at the squalid conditions that fellow human beings endure on this earth.

At some point, as you construct a rationale for the material excess that surrounds you, you must start to believe that you deserve to have more than others. Thus, the idea of class is born.

.. and I'm not talking about people who are mortgaged up to their eyeballs either. I'm talking about people like our dear leader, and these executives that feel they deserve the equivalent of 30 respectable working class incomes plus perks for simply being them.

I consider that immoral. These days we've demoted greed as a sin, and focused all our attention on things like sex.

In early January, Bush and his baseball partners hit a home run, selling the Texas Rangers to Thomas Hicks for $250 million. Bush himself hit a grand slam. For his 1.8 percent share of the club -- which cost him $605,000 -- the Governor gets paid between $10 and $14 million. That is a return of up to twenty-three times his original investment -- in less than nine years.

Why? Because the people involved needed Bush's political connections. The taxpayers paid for the stadium that Bush and his cohorts sold for a neat and tidy profit. Tidy, except for the fact that they seized the land to do it.

As member of the ruling class Bush felt entitled to money that he did not earn, all the while preaching about the evils of government dependency.

repeat after me...

Bush's personal wealth = taxpayer money.

Its all related, CEO's walk off with huge paychecks while workers are left fretting about the pensions they were promised, politicians and well connected businessmen walk away with huge government financed riches while taxpayers wonder why we can't afford the programs we want.